It is sad and heartbreaking that we woke up to the news of the assassination of Abahlali branch Leader, Sfiso Ngcobo, of Ekukhanyeni branch near Marianridge Abahlali will issue a statement to share more details.

The armed forces working for the eThekweni Municipality continue to relate to impoverished black people in the city like an army of occupation, especially when poor people are organised outside of the ruling party. Today at 11 am the notoriously violent Anti-Land Invasion Unit demolished Mr Ndumiso Mnguni’s house in our Foreman Road branch. This was a brazenly illegal and criminal act.

Next up in the Paulo Freire-focused “School of Thought” padkos sessions, Graham Philpott and Mark Butler will open a conversation about the theological foundations and connections in Freire’s life and work.

Although it’s not always known or emphasised in discussions of Paulo Freire, the fact is that Christianity was important – both in his own life, as well in the life-world of many of the people he worked with.

On 8 May 2018, CLP led a discussion at Diakonia Council of Churches, with the KZN Church Leader’s Group and others about the ‘land’ question. It was an interesting and sometimes uncomfortable discussion which asked a lot of questions with no answers being expected.

More sessions might come from this discussion with spaces being opened up for continuous critical reflection.

This year’s UnFreedom Day was a culmination of a number of consultation processes
with the broad membership of Abahlali. The processes included consultations at a leadership level,
branch level, General Assembly and Land Summit. AbM used the UnFreedom Day to make
announcements on two issues (1) the audited membership is now 50 000 (2) the position of AbM regarding the Land Expropriation without Compensation issue.

Thousands of members from across the country attended the even which was held at Springfield Park.

Since the re-emergence of the land question, Abahlali had to look deeper into how, as a movement, they will engage the debate with a deeper sense and also use their own experience. In doing so, they decided to make sure that the land question was on the agenda of each meeting that they held.

Meetings on the 5 March 2018 and 8 April 2018, all had the land question on the agenda and intensive discussions were had with the leadership as well as members of the movement.

A 2 day summit was held where ‘land’ was discussed. The summit took place at the Denis Hurley Centre on 14 & 15 April. All the branches in Durban, Eastern Cape, Volktrust andGauteng had representatives. At the end, they came up with a declaration on land which was made public at their Unfreedom Day event on 22 April 2018.

Roosboom United Churches that had received compensation, held a celebration or thanksgiving service in September 2017, to thank God for being with them throughout their struggle. Some churches are still awaiting their money vouchers as part of the compensation. CLP has been supporting these churches from 2006 and was present at the service, also contributing to its success.

Some lawyers visited the churches who are still on the waiting list and after careful consideration of what the lawyers are saying, CLP continues to support and encourage leaders to be vigilant and critical when engaging outsiders. This is after news circulated in the media of people who are on the rampage targeting restitution claimants defrauding them of money.